Rainy, extra wet conditions in June preceded dryer conditions in July. The blueberries came on strong the week of July 6, with continued strong production of cucumbers, eggplant, lettuce. Tomatoes are now in full swing, with peppers not far behind. We used the new bed lifter from Huckins Forge in Northborough, MA to harvest garlic

Kyle, Tegan and Ace cleaning garlic

Bottle gourds!!!

First tomato harvest week of July 12...

Bed lifter runs a few inches below the garlic bulbs loosening the soil and making harvesting a breeze. The garlic was one of our first experiments with non-till permaculture farming and was a great success

Dan Pratt testing out our new rolling crimper. As part of our experimentation with no-till farming, the crimper is used to knock down cover crops, such as rye, which, instead of being tilled into the soil, remain on the surface, providing weed suppression and shading for the soil.

Preparing to plant 6 beds of Asparagus, May, 2015...ready for market in 2017!!!

Production manager, Annalise Clausen, with crew member and grease car evangelist Mike Parham

With a tremendous amount of help from my friend and master carpenter Alvin Hall, the endwalls on the new high tunnel have been framed and sheathed with 3/8" plywood. Still to come are all the door hardware, hip boards, clamp boards and finally the thin sheet of plastic that should fool this little patch of ground into thinking it is located two growing zones south of us! We are a long way from seeding anything in either high tunnel, but of all the years to have a naked frame exposed to the snow, this has been a fortunate one! The propagation house is warmed up and ready for the first seedings of the year, so with just a little more climatic cooperation we may get some seedlings in the tunnels by the end of March.

A lot of people have asked me how I got my name. It is far from buried in the mists of time, but rather proudly heralded and carried forward from the ancient Phoenician civilization in the Western Mediterranean. I go by many other names, notably: Ashtart in the Old Testament, Ishtar in the ancient Mesopotamian traditions, Hathor and Isis in Byblos, and my close associations with Anat and the storm god Baal have led to the derogatory Ashtereth. "Queen of Heaven" suits me pretty well. I am both life and death. I embody change. I am freely associated with the tree of life whose branches stretch into the heavens, whose trunk is grounded on this Earth and whose roots reach deep toward the the worlds beneath the earth.

I have lent my name to by a certified organic farm in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts. Let them use it well or they shall suffer my heavenly wrath!